Clinton calls out Richard Mourdock

Bill Clinton on Tuesday called out Richard Mourdock, who handed Sen. Dick Lugar (R-Ind.) a crushing primary defeat earlier this month, saying that he found the Republican’s refusal to compromise “disturbing.”

“The Republican position that tends to prevail in these primaries as expressed by the gentleman who beat Sen. Lugar, who says, ‘I’m just against compromise, we need to stop it, it’s weak, it’s foolish, our views are irreconcilable, we have to force the American people to choose which one of us is right’ — if that prevails, we’re toast,” Clinton said. “We’ll look like a bush league country.”

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Speaking at the Peter G. Peterson Foundation’s third annual Fiscal Summit in Washington, D.C., the former president warned that Mourdock’s defeat of Lugar could seriously damage lawmakers’ motivation to band together to push for sensible political compromises.

“The Republicans would be scared to do it after what happened to Sen. Lugar, although there were other factors in his defeat,” Clinton said. “There should be a big bipartisan coalition [but] we may just have to wait until the election is over.”

In a TV interview last week, the morning after winning the GOP primary, Mourdock had predicted, “I don’t think there’s going to be a lot of successful compromise.”

“You never compromise on principles,” he said on CNN. “If people on the far left have a principle they want to stand by, they should never compromise. Those of us on the right should not either. Compromise may come in the finer details of a plan or a budget. But the real principles that I’ve mentioned about having government rolled back in size, lowering taxes — those things are the principles that caused me to get in this race.”

Saying the country has reached a point where “one side or the other has to win,” the GOP nominee added, “One side or the other will dominate.”

Clinton on Tuesday suggested that it was the responsibility of the American people to ensure that politicians with extreme views are not given seats in public office, as he urged voters to be more conscientious of candidates’ promises when heading to the ballot box, rather than being swayed by rhetoric and likeability.

“[Voters] go around telling everybody how sorry these politicians are but they voted for all of them,” Clinton said to laughter from the audience. “All they’re doing is what they’ve promised to do … it’s not like they didn’t tell everybody what they were going to do.”

Even though he maintained that Mourdock was a person that he actually “liked” personally, the 42nd president said the Senate nominee’s opposition to working with the other party struck him as “disturbing,” as he acknowledged again that bipartisanship may not come to Washington until after the 2012 election.

“As soon as this election’s over, I think the incentives will be for both parties to make more principled compromise than they have in the past,” he said.